金色DART的星系开箱

Technicians prepare to move NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft from a shipping container onto a work stand inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in this image from Oct. 4, 2021.

DART was launched on Nov. 23, 2021, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg. The spacecraft will intentionally smash into the moonlet Didymos on Sept. 26, 2022, to see if this method of asteroid deflection—known as the kinetic impactor technique—would be a viable way to protect our planet if an asteroid on a collision course with Earth were discovered in the future.

Image Credit: USSF 30th Space Wing/Aaron Taubm

这张照片摄于2021年10月4日，技术人员准备将NASA的双小行星重定向测试（DART）航天器从一个运输集装箱移到位于加利福尼亚州范登堡太空部队基地的Astrotech太空运营设施内的工作台上。

DART于2021年11月23日由范登堡的SpaceX猎鹰9号火箭发射。该航天器将于2022年9月26日故意撞击小行星Didymos，以了解如果未来发现一颗小行星与地球发生碰撞，这种被称为动力学撞击器技术的小行星偏转方法是否是保护我们星球的可行方法。

影像来源：USSF 30th Space Wing/Aaron Taubm